The Executive Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Oluwaseyi Makinde has unveiled a partnership between Farmcrowdy, Nigeria’s first digital agriculture platform, and the Oyo State government.
The official launch event which was held on Monday in Ibadan, Oyo State had all executive members and commissioners of the Oyo State cabinet in attendance.
The Governor, who is committed to redefining good governance with a focus on people-centered policies expressed his excitement about the partnership with Farmcrowdy. He explained that the partnership was one of the ways to uphold his promise to expand the economy of Oyo State using agribusiness.
“We promised to explore public-private partnership models to achieve our aim for agriculture. Yesterday, I welcomed the Agritech company, Farmcrowdy at the launch of a partnership with Oyo State for agribusiness. I believe the partnership will be mutually beneficial to Farmcrowdy and the people of our State”, he said.
Speaking at the event, Onyeka Akumah, founder of Farmcrowdy said, ”We are investing in agribusiness in Oyo State within the next three years and connecting no less than 50,000 small scale farmers in the state with solutions to various bottlenecks mitigating against the growth of their farm businesses. This would surely have a positive impact on their lives and in the end, everyone would be happy with the outcome of the project.”
Kenneth Obiajulu, Managing Director of Farmcrowdy said, “Farmcrowdy is excited to launch this strategic agricultural partnership with Oyo State using our model which has enabled us to engage 25,000+ farmers to cultivate 16,000 acres of farmland across 14 states in Nigeria. We have raised 2,500,000+ chickens and cows, and we supply 30% of the beef eaten in 3 major eateries in Lagos (with 25 outlets). We hope to help Oyo State build a thriving economy through agriculture.”
Deputy Director-General, Partnerships for Delivery, Institute of International Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Dr Kenton Dashiell and Larry Umunna, Regional Director West Africa, Technoserve, while delivering their goodwill messages at the event expressed support for the project, promising to provide technologies and resources that can triple the yield farmers are getting at the moment.
Farmcrowdy is the first digital agriculture platform in Nigeria to achieve a partnership of this magnitude.
